The Chronicle of the Slavs by Arnold of Leck

The chronicle of Arnold, Abbot of the monastery of St. John of Lübeck, is one of the most important sources for the history of Germany in the central Middle Ages, but is also probably the major source for German involvement in the Crusades. The work was intended as a continuation of the earlier chronicle of Helmold of Bosau, and covers the years 1172-1209, in seven books. It was completed soon after the latter date, and the author died not long afterwards, and no later than 1214. It is thus a strictly contemporary work, which greatly enhances its value. Its particular importance for crusader history is that Arnold provides lengthy accounts of the pilgrimage of Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, to the Holy Land in 1172 (which takes up almost the whole of book I), of the Crusade of Frederick Barbarossa in 1189-90 and the subsequent German involvement in the siege of Acre, and of the abortive German Crusade of ll97-8 (about which otherwise we would know little) - as well as providing, out of sequence in book VII, a brief account of earlier diplomatic negotiations between Frederick Barbarossa and Saladin. In addition, while Arnold devotes a great deal of attention to events within Saxony, and to other issues such as the German monarchs’ relationship with the papacy, he is also our most important contemporary source for the expansion of the eastern frontier of Germany and the development of the Baltic Crusade at the end of the twelfth century. There is also valuable material for the conquest of the kingdom of Sicily by Henry VI. Taken overall, this is one of the most important sources for the history of Christendom c. 1200, but in the Anglophone world it is little-known and rather neglected. It is, however, both a wide-ranging, and often a vivid and lively, account.

Graham A. Loud is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Leeds, and was Head of the School of History 2012-15. Among his previous books are The Age of Robert Guiscard. Southern Italy and the Norman Conquest (Harlow 2000), The Latin Church in Norman Italy (Cambridge 2007), and Roger II and the Creation of the Kingdom of Sicily (Manchester 2012). He has also translated The Crusade of Frederick Barbarossa, for the Ashgate ‘Crusade Texts in Translation’ series (2010), and is currently editing The Origins of the German Principalities, 1100-1350, with Alan Murray and Jochen Schenk (Ashgate / German Historical Institute).